


Play God

by jannah (fromjannah)



Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: 5+1 Things, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canonical Character Death, Gen, Ghost Wilbur Soot, Mind Control, Morally Ambiguous Wilbur Soot, Sleepy Bois Inc as Family, Technoblade Hears Voices (Video Blogging RPF), Wilbur Soot and Technoblade and TommyInnit are Siblings, idk how to tag this, it'll make sense I promise, not actually RPF, that's the best kind
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-24
Updated: 2021-03-11
Packaged: 2021-03-15 11:20:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29683182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fromjannah/pseuds/jannah
Summary: When Wilbur Soot speaks, people listen, but sometimes they need a little extra encouragement. Sometimes it'll be a mistake, sometimes it'll be on purpose, sometimes even Wilbur isn't sure, but he'll get what he wants and he'll keep everyone safe in the end.More simply put: five times Wilbur uses a highly dubious mind control ability, for better or for worse, and one time he cannot (but gets what he wants anyway, for better or for worse).(And now with a coda featuring an amnesiac ghost who isn't quite sure if he gets what he wants. For better or for worse.)
Relationships: Floris | Fundy & Wilbur Soot, No Romantic Relationship(s), Toby Smith | Tubbo & Wilbur Soot, Wilbur Soot & Phil Watson, Wilbur Soot & Technoblade & TommyInnit, Wilbur Soot & TommyInnit
Comments: 46
Kudos: 184





	1. 1, 2

**Author's Note:**

> Chaptered fic? In this economy? Don't get too excited, it's going to be very short, I really should be posting this as a oneshot but also I just want to give chaptered stuff a shot (heh). 
> 
> This entire thing was inspired by Clem Turner's absolutely banger cover of Oh Ana by Mother Mother (which you can find [ here](https://youtu.be/wZpJLvYGgXE)). That's where the title and the section headings come from, make sure to check it out!
> 
> Anyways, on with it. This is not about the CCs but the SMP characters. Enjoy!

_1\. hop on a cloud, watch the world decay_

"Wilbur, Wilbur, Wilbur," sings Tommy, horribly off-key; he is eleven and without a sense of self-preservation, he is eleven and believing that he's unstoppable. In the warm summer afternoon, his first iron sword tucked away in his inventory, sun a drop of pure gold in the sky, Tommy is without fear. Perhaps this is the first mistake, the original sin. 

" _Wil-bahh,"_ he calls out, running through the knee-high emerald grass to his brother, tucked between the blades and scribbling away in his notebook. "Guess who has an iron sword now?"

Wilbur, fourteen and irritable, hopped up on hormones and with the acne-ridden skin to show for it, doesn't look up. 

Tommy makes an affronted noise. "Oi, bitch, I'm _talking_ to you," he says, crouching down so his mouth is right by Wilbur's ear. "Didn't you hear? I got a _sword_ , a proper one! I made it with Tubbo and Phil and -- come _on_ , Wilbur, _hello_?" 

"Leave me alone, Tommy," Wilbur only says, still writing away. 

Tommy whines. "Stop being _boring_ ," he complains dramatically, looking up into the bright blue sky, as if requesting assistance from the gods. He studies his brother a moment longer before asking, "What have you been writing, anyway?" and snatching Wilbur's notebook out from under him, his still poised-up pencil scrawling a line across the page in the swift motion.

He doesn't have a chance to look it over and tease Wilbur for getting infatuated with some random girl from the nearby village and subsequently write leagues of poems about her. Wilbur snatches his book back with terrifying speed, standing up fluidly and grabbing Tommy's wrist with a claw like grip. 

" _Just leave me alone,_ " he snaps with a foreign anger. Tommy feels his breathing go shallow, feels his pulse accelerating under Wilbur's bony fingers, but what's really rattling him are Wilbur's eyes -- normally a warm, comforting brown that shines in the light, now somehow pitch black in the bright afternoon. 

_Get away from him now go go go go_ is the only comprehensive thought that manages to make its way through Tommy's head. He tears away his hand and runs through the field aimlessly, his destination unknown, his thoughts only consisting of _away now go_ **_leave him alone_**. His new sword, his supposed protection, is long forgotten. 

He doesn't dare to go near Wilbur for the rest of the day. Or maybe he can't. 

Wilbur's chest heaves, his stomach roils, and his writing is long forgotten as well. He stares down at his hands. They look the same -- writer's callus, a smattered birthmark, bluish veins -- but something had come _through_ them. Like electricity. Or something stronger. 

It was a mistake, he swears it, he knows it. But that doesn't discount the fact that it had felt natural. It had felt right. 

_2\. play that God a poker game_

Technoblade's sword sweeps into a beautiful arc into the air, polished diamond in a perfect straightedge cresting like an ocean's wave, a hoofed foot knocking Tommy down and keeping him there, firmly stuck and barely able to move. The sword's point fixes itself into the hollow between Tommy's tucked in chin and the notch of his collarbone. 

Tommy grins gleefully despite his fatigue, baring white teeth strapped with metal. He is thirteen and addicted to adrenaline rushes, like the kind that come from practice sparring with Technoblade, a hardened warrior at merely eighteen, who is finally home after a year.

They stand like that for a moment longer. Tommy tries to move to get up, but Techno keeps his foot down, pulse ringing in his ears and his damned heart singing a forbidden song that he enjoys too much, one that's been plaguing him for days. He had left his battle worlds seven days ago and he was out of routine. The voices cry and shout, thirst and hunger, crave and yearn. 

When he was younger, the voices were manageable. Ever since he had left home for the realms of constant fighting, they had gotten spoiled for bloodshed every night, developed a taste that Technoblade had not fed in a week's time.

 _Blood for the blood god_ , he hears a thousand voices say, looking down at his mentor's son, the boy who had become his little brother. _Blood for the blood god._

How easy it would be to angle the sword down, to the boy's heart. Or maybe flatten it out, slice his neck. 

He swallows, shoulders hunched as he wages the war within himself. Obviously he will not, obviously he _cannot_ , but he also cannot move his foot. Tommy's poor, young face shines with confusion and sweat from the playful tussle -- it was supposed to have been just a _game_. Technoblade cannot _move,_ why is he so _foolish_ , why can he not _control them_ , why can he not _move --_

"Technoblade," says a careful voice from behind him, slightly strained, cautious, measured. Whoever it is reaches pale, shaking fingers onto the wrist of Techno's sword hand, holding it in a gentle grasp. "That's enough. _Move away from Tommy_."

Techno slowly looks over to Wilbur next to him, sixteen and sounding both like his father and someone Techno had never heard before in his life. 

Wilbur's eyes are twin captures of the void he so often likes to spin tales about. Miraculously, Techno feels the voices quiet to a near silence he hasn't experienced in a very, very long time. It's nearly bliss.

He steps away, puts away the sword, filled with an itching impulse to be anywhere but there. Tommy still lays on the ground. Techno does not come near him for the rest of the day. Perhaps he cannot. 

Wilbur tells himself that this time it was different, this time it was to keep his brother -- brothers, both of them -- safe. He knew what it was like to face a strangeness inside of you, so difficult to control. The thought makes him feel less sick, and helps him sleep somewhat soundly at night.

It's been two years since he last did it and it's still easy, so easy. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! Comment are rad! Update will hopefully be tomorrow or the day after.


	2. 3, 4, 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And we're back! I didn't give up on this! Pog! Thanks for all the love on the last chapter, I really appreciate it.
> 
> These three scenes are a bit different because they spiralled into character study territory at some parts -- which does make sense, I am rather sympathetic to these three. 
> 
> Minor note, just so you know -- the first scene is of my own imagination, second is inspired by canon but interpretated loosely, and the third has dialogue straight from canon, but the scenario has been messed around with a bit. 
> 
> Enjoy!

_3\. God's spare change_

War will be waged tomorrow and Fundy cannot sleep. Can he be blamed? He is a child soldier, dragged into his absent father’s battles for the only loosely-organized country he knows. 

His mind is in pieces, there is a pit in his stomach that weighs him down like a stone, and Fundy cannot sleep. 

He gets up from his bed, orange hair in a tussle and fox ears turning at every strange sound of the night, heart coming up into his chest in fear of a mob. He needs a walk to release some of the anxious energy pent up in him, he needs to talk to someone. Luckily he knows where his father is -- in that stupid van of his.

Fundy opens the door as quietly as he can, which is not very quiet at all, because the damned thing _creeeeaaaak_ s inauspiciously. He winces as Wilbur looks up from whatever war documents he’s pouring over tonight, round wire-rimmed glasses perched low on his nose. 

“Fundy?” he asks in surprise, giving a hesitant smile and taking off his glasses. “What’re you doing up?”

The asininity of the situation comes crashing down on Fundy like a wave, an entire tsunami, and he hates himself for being so foolish. He couldn’t sleep, so he went to his father? How silly, how childish. Maybe Wilbur is right to act like his son is younger than he truly is.

“Couldn’t sleep,” mutters Fundy. He glances quickly at the papers Wilbur is looking over -- rough maps with various annotations. Wilbur said that they would only fight if necessary, but clearly extra precautions are being taken. Another wave crashes over him, this one of nausea. He’s going to _war_ tomorrow. 

“Oh,” Wilbur says, quiet. He looks over Fundy with a slightly puzzled expression. “You always slept so well before.”

Fundy barely resists the urge to snap at him. Of course he can’t sleep, he is a child soldier, dragged into his absent father’s battles. Of course he can’t sleep, he is going to _war_ tomorrow. He clenches his hands into fists behind him and only shrugs. “Well, I couldn’t,” he can’t resist saying, tone turning sharp. 

Wilbur sighs softly, tight posture loosening some. He walks over, kneeling down so he’s eye-level with Fundy, a gesture that only makes him feel more ridiculous. “You’re nervous?”

Fundy’s jaw sets and he’s a beat away from impulsively yelling something profane that Tommy had taught him. He swallows, looking up at Wilbur’s imploring expression, and the slightest modicum of guilt enters him. “A little,” he admits, face heating up immediately after the confession. 

“Aww, Fundy,” Wilbur whispers sympathetically, moving some of Fundy’s hair out of his face. “I get it. But it’ll be fine, I promise. We’re prepared and we’re all gonna be fine.”

Fundy loathes the fact that the dulcet tones and honeyed words actually calm him some, despite being so superficial. “Okay,” he mumbles. He still can’t make himself move. Rest would be an acceptance of what horrible things are sure to come tomorrow. 

“Hey,” says Wilbur, entreating. He takes Fundy’s hands into his own, holding his wrist. Fundy can feel his father’s guitar calluses: rough, thickened skin on his fingertips. He has the hands of a musician, just like Fundy’s own fingers which can stretch ten keys on the piano. It’s one of the few things they still have in common. “It’ll all be fine. _Go to sleep, Fundy_.”

Fundy looks up into his father’s eyes, discs of yawning shadows that instill him with an eerie calmness. They seem to swallow all of the harsh, artificial lighting of the van. 

“‘Kay,” he says, lips fumbling with the word in sudden tiredness. “G’night, Dad.”

Wilbur smiles; beatific, warm, safe. He plants a kiss to Fundy’s forehead. “Goodnight, Fundy.” 

All Fundy can do is stumble off back to his bed, sleep overtaking him the second he lays down.

Wilbur watches his son goes off. The slightest modicum of guilt enters him but it’s smaller than it has even been before -- it was for Fundy’s sake, for a good reason. 

And it seems that this is his nature, anyway. He is Wilbur Soot, revolutionary, country founder, leader; when he speaks, people listen.

_4\. watch that blood evaporate_

Eret watches in dull horror as Schlatt loudly proclaims the exile of the two people who had fought hardest for the very country the new president -- _emperor_? -- was now the leader of. They see Tommy turn to Wilbur with dozens of questions in his expression, some falling to his lips in a rapid stream of confusion. Wilbur’s fingers flex and he looks up to Schlatt with sterling, unadulterated hatred. 

And then they’re gone. Eret may be a traitor through and through, a king who rests upon a throne of betrayal, but they feel sick, they are overwhelmed with the sense that this is so terribly wrong. They watch Tubbo, poor, young Tubbo, get called onto stage, everything about his short stature radiating panic. Next to Eret, Niki is a portrait painted in fury, a goddess coming to wreak vengeance, shaking with the might of the earth. 

Eret feels horribly small and shame wells up in them, a volcano in their stomach, the crown upon their head cutting into their skull like knives. How cowardly they are, they think. They manage to confront Schlatt, only to be brushed off.

A glimmer of opportunity presents itself for atonement, though, and Eret takes it wholeheartedly.

“Gentlemen,” they say to Tommy and Wilbur when they see the two by the wall, “I believe I can offer you assistance.”

It’s a strange image, two exiled men facing a king, two exiled men facing a traitor. Tommy and Wilbur are in their L’manberg uniforms -- earlier, they had been clean, straight-backed and proud, but now their clothes have been sullied, wrinkled, and Tommy is leaning into Wilbur with obvious distress. 

As Eret waits for a response, their red cape feels like it’s soaked in blood, so heavy that it’ll be choking them, dragging them down into the spot in hell that they’re destined to go to. 

“You have been betrayed,” they attempt. “I can help you.” 

Tommy glances to Wilbur in a query, who lights up -- not in joy or gratitude, but with wrath, like gasoline to flame. Like Eret is just the same as Schlatt, another slight upon L’manberg. Their breath catches in their throat and suddenly Eret is incredibly afraid, despite the netherite weapons in their inventory, despite the fact that Wilbur looks unarmed. 

“We don’t need your fuckin' help,” Wilbur snarls in a terrible voice, hand grabbing one of Eret’s wrists before they can take out a shield. Dirt has caked under Wilbur’s round, unevenly clipped nails. “ _Get the hell away from us._ ” 

Maybe it’s the sun setting behind him, maybe it’s Eret’s sunglasses, but Wilbur’s eyes look darker, impossibly so, pits of tar and hatred. 

Eret stumbles backwards, nearly tripping on their cape. All they can do is run.

Wilbur lays his hand on Tommy’s shaking shoulder. He doesn’t even have an excuse for this one. It was instinct, but he knew that he had wanted to do it, too.

_5\. faking this God can't be good_

His life has been a strange thing lately, exhilarating and petrifying all at once, Tubbo thinks to himself as he waits for Wilbur to come, looking around the ravine that has become a cobbled-together resistance. He is out of place, in his business suit and tie, and yet this is his home. 

Absently, Tubbo rubs his shoulder, as if Schlatt’s sharp nails are still there, digging into his flesh, presenting him like a trophy. _Right hand man,_ he can hear, echoing around his mind.

Wilbur arrives, down the steps (without rails), nearly tripping over but righting himself easily. Something about him is off -- Tommy had told Tubbo this, but he can see it himself. It’s not just Wilbur’s attire, that uneven coat stained with something Tubbo isn’t sure he wants to know about. It’s his entire presence, riddled with frantic gestures and frenzied tangents. 

Tubbo stands up out of habit as Wilbur comes over. He can barely bite back a habitual salutation of _Mr President!,_ which only brings Schlatt’s booming voice back to his brain, which is one hundred percent not helpful. 

And then Wilbur starts talking about blowing up Manberg during the festival. 

This is no quick, frenzied tangent.

Tubbo isn’t quite sure what he’s feeling as Wilbur claims, laughing, that he’ll supposedly “find it funny”. There’s a definitive element of shock there and maybe a touch of admiration as Wilbur goes on to talk about how he’s found the perfect way to maximize damage with everything in Manberg factored in. And the fact that he’s so _casual_ on top of it all. Tubbo is, just a bit, in awe _._

“You can’t let Schlatt know any of this,” Wilbur says, abruptly breaking away from his ramble. “Obviously.” 

Something turns in Tubbo’s stomach. Did that have to be said? Was it not implied? _Obviously_. “Yeah, no, of course not,” he says quickly, going on to help as best as he can with the plot, mentioning his speech for the festival. 

But Wilbur specifically doesn’t want him dead, which has to count for something. In fact, he confides: “You’re actually the only person I’ve told, aside from Tommy.”

“Really?” Tubbo asks, and he can’t help but feel touched. 

“Tubbo you -- you don’t deserve this fate. You don’t deserve the fate that I’m gonna befall.”

Schlatt’s voice is but a distant memory as that statement processes and Tubbo gives a small smile, fiddling with his tie and straightening his suit jacket. Had he not been distracted, he would’ve been concerned by that particularly dramatic wording. “I don’t feel like I’d die,” he says, a half-hearted attempt for humor, words tripping over themselves. “I really don’t. I feel like it would be quite -- quite a startling image, ingrained in my brain.”

Wilbur exhales in response, and it’s almost patronizing. 

They go on to talk about plans and how Wilbur rigged up the entirety of Manberg, apparently, and Tubbo can’t help but feel so terribly happy to be _included_. It’s shameful but he feels it back in Manberg with Schlatt’s cabinet, and here all the same with an exiled man -- the irony is not lost on him, and it is cruel indeed. Maybe he’s missing Tommy. Or maybe he just wants to be worth something.

“Once this is blown up -- we can take the remains, it’s for us,” Wilbur says. The words _we_ and _us_ make Tubbo feel incredibly soft about the idea of blowing up an entire country. 

But then: “It’ll never be over, Tubbo,” Wilbur tells him conspiratorially, leaning back against a rocky wall. There’s dust in his mussed hair. 

“Mm… I dunno,” Tubbo protests as carefully as he can. “I can -- I can see a future where -- “

“Tubbo, it’s never gonna be over,” repeats Wilbur, voice lowering as he looks out upon the ravine, something malevolent entering his tone. 

Tubbo argues that once Schlatt is out of the picture that surely it’ll be over, but Wilbur protests, saying that it’s all a cycle of vengeance, about how people will never be even, about how it might not all be worth it, and a brief flash of uncertainty enters Tubbo. 

“D’you -- d’you even want L’manberg back, then?” asks Tubbo incredulously, looking to his leader, the man who had founded his country. “If that’s just the end fate? I know it’s about more than that, but -- “

“I don’t -- “ Clear pain makes its way over Wilbur’s features, a crack in his passive, careless facade. “I don’t know.”

“‘Cause that doesn’t sound like a good future, if I’m totally honest,” Tubbo says, rambling now as anxiety forces its way up his throat and into his words. “Doomed to forever fight.”

“I don’t think… erm. I don’t think Manberg’s really gonna be much up for grabs, by the time I’m done with it.” 

It’s as if Wilbur cannot make eye contact with Tubbo. A shiver go up his spine at the rather final-seeming words. 

But it’s all nearly forgotten as Wilbur requests Tubbo to tear down the obsidian flag after the detonation. That feeling of warm belonging returns in full force, and he nearly laughs in awe when he hears about the withers. 

Then: “Tommy’s not convinced.” 

Tubbo bites his lip in a moment of discomfort. “I mean, I can see why, but -- “

“Have you spoken to him?” 

“Er, yeah, yeah, a little bit.”

Wilbur’s voice has gone to a low rasp, now, nearly dangerous. “What has he told you?” 

“Erm, he has concerns. But I’m sure you can persuade him,” Tubbo adds hurriedly. 

“Ignore him. I don’t want you talk to Tommy.” 

There’s little room for argument and for a moment Tubbo is afraid. “Ohh… okay.”

Wilbur finally turns to him and takes Tubbo’s wrists into his own, dirtied hands -- seemingly nothing like Schlatt’s, but both of their nails are strangely sharp and Wilbur’s dig into Tubbo’s skin. “ _Promise me you won’t speak to Tommy._ ”

“Er…” Tubbo looks up to Wilbur’s face and the typhoon of his fear and nervousness suddenly dissipates, looking to the eye of the hurricane of Wilbur’s dark, dark eyes. The words come to his lips easily, almost instinctually: “Sure. I promise.” 

“Good,” Wilbur says, satisfied, dropping Tubbo’s hands. “Good luck, then.”

Tubbo rubs his wrists absently, rubs the dull indentation of Wilbur’s chipped, dirtied nails. 

There isn’t an excuse for this one, there’s an explanation, Wilbur tells himself, but it’s not even really worth it. There’s no remorse. He’s certain that Tubbo will eventually turn traitor, but there are a few secrets that he’d like to keep. He has the means and the disposition, so might as well.

Perhaps he's the villain, in this story. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! We have one chapter left, and though you may have figured out what's going on, I hope you'll still tune in tomorrow to read it!


	3. +1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Early update because I am impatient and not doing classwork. I really enjoyed this chapter despite all of the dialogue being straight from canon. I'm a lazy bastard. What're you going to do, sue me? I'm too lazy to show up to court, you fool!
> 
> Anyway, tw for death. That's right. It's this scene. There is no gore, however, just a couple mentions of blood.
> 
> Enjoy.

_+1. you are the angel that I couldn't kill_

Phil watches his blinding, terrifying, beautiful son, arms around him like he’s being crucified, crying and laughing, in this horrible, horrible room. He’s surrounded by the words, the song on the wall and Wilbur was right, it _is_ terribly poignant, Phil thinks to himself ludicrously. _Go emancipate the brutality_ is etched in hurried writing over Wilbur’s head, framing like a president’s portrait, the words perfectly appropriate and so unfitting all at once. Phil can hear explosions back in his son’s country. Forever unfinished, never meant to be -- he couldn't have this, so no one could. 

Phil isn’t sure exactly what he’s doing, what he’s saying, he’s reacting in a panic, looking back and forth to the ruins, to his son. He’s numb to it all, veins full of novocaine, until Wilbur throws down a sword.

Wilbur closes the space between father and son in one long stride -- tall, he’s so tall. He grabs Phil’s wrists in an imploring motion, but his lips are stretched into that damned, manic grin as he falls down to his knees. Horrified, Phil cannot recall a time that Wilbur has ever looked so ecstatic, so satisfied.

And then there’s the request, the plea, the beg: “Kill me, Phil, _kill me._ ”

Phil is old. Yes, he is, and he’s teased about it, but it means that he’s seen things, known things, recognizes signs. And as he stares at his intelligent, idiotic son, he realizes something, sees a sign, in a single moment that stretches eons. 

Wilbur’s irises are chips of obsidian in the red-streaked marble of his sclera, the pupil exploding outwards like the TNT that has just detonated outside, rimmed by the thinnest line of brown so concentrated that it looks like gold. Wilbur’s hands are on Phil’s wrists and despite wrecking all this havoc, he has the hands of a pacifist, of a peaceful man, with calluses only from writing and playing guitar; his palms are smooth and soft, barely used to holding the hilt of a sword, not even comfortable with the handle of a hoe or a pickaxe. 

The point of contact between them hums with a dull magic, the simple, unrefined kind that Phil can ward off easily, but it still blind sides him, _how the hell did I never realize_? His son of endless foolishness and even more wisdom, silver-tongued and with a magic in his hands. The sky spirits that had given Phil his arching wings had given Wilbur a different gift, a different curse. 

And Phil had never known. Or maybe he had -- Wilbur had always radiated charisma, but Phil just thought it was through that infectious grin of his, his quick wit, his bright laugh. Not this, never this.

Phil realizes, at last, finally, and much too late what he’s being asked, what he was supposed to be controlled to do. 

Wilbur’s chest heaves as his pupils shrink back, only revealing a broken, brilliant brown. 

"Phil, kill me," he repeats in terrified shame and shock, the words messier now, stumbling through his chapped lips, phrases becoming nonsensical: "Killza -- do it, Phil, murder me -- "

Phil can only stare in abject horror as Wilbur gestures out to the ruins of his country, still on his knees, still keeping one hand on Phil's wrist like a lifeline. "They all want you to," he insists and there's pure desperation in the words; Phil is not the only one who had been taken for a shock today. Clearly Wilbur's plans have been thrown vastly out of proportion, even though he couldn't have known that Phil was coming. "Do it, Phil, kill me, Phil, kill me."

And there's no magic in his words and no magic in the fingers that are clinging to Phil, but something is still ripped out of him, seemingly against his will. "You're my _son!_ " he yells, bloody and raw and ugly, rough-edged and scarring. 

But Wilbur has always been a stubborn bastard, and this situation is no different -- no, this is the quintessence of it. Tone hardening, he demands, "Kill me."

"No matter what you do," Phil says, and he's the one begging now, though he finds himself picking up the gleaming sword, he hates it but he knows how this will have to conclude, "no matter what -- you can't -- "

" _Look!"_ Wilbur screams and it's not magical but Phil still looks, of course he does, just for his stupid, prodigal son and his goddamned silver tongue and the tantrums he throws. "How much _work_ went into this, and it's _gone!"_

There's a pause here, a breath, right at the crescendo, cutting off the rapid-fire tempo -- a rest in the unfinished symphony. The sword is in Phil's hands. Wilbur's face is tear streaked and pale, all signs of his chaotic, giddy joy vanished, leaving behind a desperate man, begging for a reprieve. 

" _Do it,_ " says Wilbur. His weak, barely finessed magic surges up again in a last ditch effort. 

Phil does not feel compulsion, but only his son's desire for rest. 

The sword is raised. 

Wilbur's soul leaves his body easily, eerily so. Phil falls down in a kneel, Wilbur's lifeless head listlessly leaning against his chest. A scream tears itself out of the father's chest, anguished and barely comprehensible.

Trembling and vision horribly blurred, he shuts Wilbur's eyes -- a broken, brilliant brown, but the image of those black ones will never leave Phil’s mind. 

Phil moves Wilbur's still hooked fingers -- the hands of a poet, a musician, a revolutionary, a leader, a brother, a father, a son -- off of his own bloodied wrist.

In the last of his thoughts, Wilbur isn't sure if it was his twisted ability or simply Phil himself that had gotten the sword driven through him, but it doesn't matter. He had gotten what he had wanted. 

It was his nature, after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're done? We're done! I did it! Thank you so much for reading, chaptered stuff (even as short as this) is really difficult for me, so I'm honestly a little shocked that I've gotten here. You're super rad!
> 
> Comments are very cool. I kind of want to consider writing a follow-up (+2?) to this with a certain amnesiac ghost, so let me know what you think about that. Thank you again!


	4. Coda (++1)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _"She's in a long black coat tonight, waiting for me in the downpour outside / she's singing 'baby come home' in a melody of tears while the rhythm of the rain keeps time."_
> 
> A time when Wilbur's ghost couldn't manipulate someone and didn't quite get what he wanted, either.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Eyup. Yeah, I'm back. I got overly attached to this fic. 
> 
> This one's for Weston -- apparently I can't gift individual chapters, but it's in spirit. 
> 
> This chapter barely follows the storyline and basically went into character study but hey! That's basically the entire fic! Enjoy.

_I’ll be with you still_

When L’manberg falls, it’s raining. Not the light, drizzly type that creates fine veils of mist -- this is true, well and proper rain, coming down in a rumbling storm. Lightning cracks across the sky, fierce and blinding white. On communicators, a warning for a remaining wither looms. Despite the downpour, the smell of gunpowder still lays heavily in the air. 

_Good fucking riddance,_ Phil thinks as L’manberg crumbles under its own weight. 

All in all, it’s been a success. The kids will survive, but the country won’t, and that’s enough for Phil. 

He had been prepared to be disdained, he had been prepared to have to hide -- he had not, however, been prepared to have to get yelled at by a ghost about a _goddamn sheep_.

Wilbur had always been horrible at taking care of pets; Phil can vividly recall him, back in some antediluvian time of childhood, crying for a straight day about some parrot flying off. But this isn’t Wilbur, if there’s anything that Phil’s sure about it’s that. This shell, this puppet animated by some cruel force wearing his son’s face -- Phil will call him ‘Ghostbur’, he’ll call him ‘Wil’, but his heart has never been in it -- this is not Wilbur. This is not his tragic son, with silver stitched into his tongue and magic weaved into his fingerprints. This isn’t even a sliver of him. 

Phil wonders, in some dark corner of his mind, as the ghost yells in some pitchy masquerade of Wilbur’s voice, if this is his punishment for raising the sword he’d been requested to use, nearly forced to -- to have to see his son’s face but never be able to hear him quite properly. 

Rain falls onto the ghost’s pale, sallow skin, sizzling like hot butter in a pan. He doesn’t seem to notice, or rather he ignores it as he queries about why L’manberg had to fall. He’s crying as well, somehow, tears evaporating as they leak down Wilbur’s -- _no, the ghost’s_ \-- hollow face. He must’ve not been eating much before death. A shadow of too-late concern flickers in Phil’s unmoving heart. 

Phil musters up some poor, lamely said excuse for the sheep dying, says it twice. He expects this to satiate the ordinarily easily-appeased shell, make him back off. It doesn’t. 

Instead, the ghost closes the heavy space between them and screams for Phil to _“stop, stop,_ **_stop_** _”_ and his dye-stained fingers grab onto Phil’s wrists. Blue streaks itself across his hands.

There’s a horrible, horrible pause, only filled by rain and thunder, a ding from a communicator and maybe something crumbling off in the falling country. 

The ghost is different from the handful of spirits that Phil has encountered over his long life. He’s so unalike what he had been before death, he’s susceptible to water for some reason, he can barely remember anything at all. But the biggest difference is that he’s tangible -- not a wraith, a wisp of a spirit that passes through places unseen, but a real, solid figure. Nearly a person, it seems sometimes. 

So the ghost’s fingers clutch Phil’s wrists. 

They just stare at each other for a moment; Phil in a shock over something he had thought he had accepted, the ghost with an entire circus of emotions tumbling across his face, the principle one being confusion, but with a wide stroke of fear. Distantly, Phil recognizes this expression -- it’s the one the ghost makes whenever he recalls something darker from his past, something he goes on to compartmentalize, bury it like his original body never had been. 

There isn’t any magic in his touch, just colorant drenching his fingers -- no, no, that’s wrong, Phil realizes with a stupefied pang. There’s the barest spark, like a far off childhood memory, something that couldn’t sway the general person, much less Phil. But it’s there. 

He had never asked the ghost if he still had the ability, if he still remembered using it; in his grief, Phil just dove into the vast recesses of his memory to find signs that he had missed -- or perhaps willfully ignored -- over Wilbur’s life. He had never bothered to ask the ghost -- and why would he? It’s not as if he remembers anything. 

The ghost’s wide eyes are a crude imitation of Wilbur’s as well, glazed over and grayish, but Phil can see the pupil shrinking back like a cowering animal from eyes that look cataract-ridden -- it had been expanding, then, fighting to swallow up the iris whole. 

_He doesn’t even know what he’s doing_ , thinks Phil, grateful and horrified all at once; grateful so he doesn’t have to endure this bewilderment and sheer strangeness all over again, horrified because that means that this is truly _Wilbur’s_ ghost, not just any spirit parading around with his face. 

Phil can’t continue to ignore this. 

It all only lasts a second; Phil’s ancient mind is used to filling up the shortest pauses with spiels of wild thoughts. The ghost -- _Wilbur’s ghost_ \-- has let go, he had let go sometime in that eons-long second, he had no desire to truly manipulate Phil to do something. Phil's wrists are still stained blue. 

Nonsensical, childish creams continue to spill forth from the ghost's lips, a paroxysm of complaints, yet justified all the same, acting as if nothing had happened -- because of course he would, what does he know?

Still, Phil tries to prove that _he's_ the one justified, saying that governments shouldn't be formed, saying that they ruin people. It's a neat, tidy thing, an explanation that Technoblade would approve of -- Wilbur was part of a government, ergo, he became corrupt and brought his own downfall. 

It's so much more complex than that; Phil can't just say that the title of president had brought his son down when it's so much more. But it's such an easy way to see it, especially with Wilbur's ghost yelling at him about a sheep and books and not deserving this _but do_ I _deserve this, having to see this weakling remain with my son's face and name when I had tried only to put him to rest?_

Phil has been trying to separate the ghost and Wilbur -- hell, the ghost does that as well -- but looking upon the crying spirit with his back to the destruction of his country, all he sees is an inverted image of Wilbur in the button room. All Phil feels is the hilt of the sword in his hands, along with swallowed memories clawing their way back up his throat. 

The ghost asks how Phil can consider himself to be a hero. He never had, still doesn't -- on that fateful, horrible, damning day, Wilbur had simply appointed Phil to be his judge, his jury, his executioner.

Destruction upon destruction, history repeating itself in a cruelly ironic loop. L’manberg always falls, and it always drags Wilbur down with it. 

Phil has brought down the country for its final time. Maybe it’s for anarchy, maybe it’s to go against corruption. Or maybe it’s in a hope that Wilbur can finally rest. 

"I'm sorry," Phil tells Wilbur’s ghost finally, not truly meaning it, he still can't bring himself to. The blue dye on his hands smears itself up his arm, onto his ash-covered clothes. "Maybe you'll understand, one day."

Wilbur's ghost watches the father leave as the torrent of rain continues. His fingers flex weakly, feeling as if they're all tissue and no bone. He can still feel Phil's stronger wrist under them. Why had he done that? What instinct had driven him forward?

No, Wilbur's ghost doesn't understand, not quite yet, maybe he never will. But he'd wager a good guess on Phil not having all the answers, either. 

He doesn't quite understand his nature -- and really, had anyone ever?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Maybe keep an eye on this one, there's yet another idea bouncing around my brain. I'm dragging this one out way past the ordinary 5+1, lads. 
> 
> Thank you for reading! Comments are extremely pog.


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